


here’s the smell of blood still

by lahdolphin



Category: Gangsta. (Manga)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Manga Spoilers, there was a plot but I lost it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 15:26:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4397162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lahdolphin/pseuds/lahdolphin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is blood on my hands. It will not go away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	here’s the smell of blood still

Nicolas often wondered if what people said was true. If you lost one sense, your other senses grew stronger. For someone born without a sense, and a Twilight no less, then surely this affect would be stronger than most.

His eyesight was unnatural, a gift that allowed him to make sense of what people said when he could not hear the words. He always thought it was to make up for his deafness. But now, suddenly, his sense of smell had improved. Was this a cruel punishment for what he did?

Because days after killing Worick’s family, he still smelled the blood on his hands, on his scalp, on his _skin_ , as if it was embedded deep into his body, residing in his bones so it never truly left him.

He knew that could not be normal. Blood washed away. The smell faded.

At least, that’s what he thought.

The others he had killed only visited him in nightmares, where he remembered the vibrations of their screams in his bones and the tug of a person’s dying flesh as he unsheathed his sword from their gut. When he woke up startled and cold and shaking, he could distance himself from it, remind himself that it was a dream.

But this was different. This he could not escape by waking up.

He rubbed his hands raw every time they had access to running water to get rid of the red spots, but the spots remained. Then he tried rubbing dirt between his palms to remove the foul stench, but the smell only grew worse.

Their first night at Ergastulum, in an abandoned house they broke into, Worick caught him washing his hands in the middle of the night. Even the hot water could not burn away the spot.

“I need to take a leak,” Worick said. “Is that steam? Hey, Nic, turn it down or you’ll burn yourself.”

Nicolas read his lips in the mirror. He shook his head.

“Are you crazy?”

Nicolas didn’t answer. He didn’t know the answer.

“What are you doing?”

Nicolas turned to face Worick and moved his hands, signing out:

_Dirty._

“Huh?”

 _Dirty_ , Nicolas repeated, with more force. _There is a spot._

Worick grabbed Nicolas by the wrists, flipping his hands palm-up, and studied them closely.

“I don’t see anything,” Worick said.

How could Worick not see it? How could he not smell it, thick and awful like copper? Nicolas’s mouth felt heavy with it, the taste on his tongue, seeping down into his throat and stomach and making him ill.

Worick released Nic’s hands, reaching around him to turn off the hot water.

“What’s up with you?”

_There is blood on my hands. It will not go away._

“I’m telling you, there’s no blood.”

_There is!_

“Fine,” Worick caved, though he obviously did not believe Nicolas. “There’s blood. Whose blood?”

Again, Nicolas did not answer.

Worick exhaled deeply. After a brief moment of thought, he carefully signed, _I also have blood on my hands._

Nicolas stared. _I do not see it._

_I do not see yours either._

That didn’t make sense. Worick had no blood to be burdened with, but Nicolas did. Nicolas had nameless faces—soldiers, and woman, and children—and Worick’s family. His hands were stained with blood. Worick was clean.

“Our hands are going to get a lot dirtier from now on,” Worick said. “Can you handle that?”

He would not let Worick dirty his hands like this.

_Yes._

“Because if I die because you were too busy scrubbing at non-existent blood, I’ll come back and haunt you!”

Nicolas tilted his head. Worick spoke too fast, with too much emotion. He wanted to know what Worick had said.

 _Repeat_ , Nicolas signed.  

“I’m not repeating that.”

_Repeat._

“It’s too much effort!”

_Repeat._

“Just get out so I can piss in peace!”

 

* * *

 

**Lady Macbeth**

Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the  
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this  
little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

_—Macbeth (act 5, scene 1)_

**Author's Note:**

> I swear this was going somewhere at some point. Obviously I got lost because that ended no where. Also, yay for random Shakespeare references.


End file.
